‘The sunbathed clay pit’

This painting by John Weeks depicts a Christchurch
clay pit at the base of the Port Hills. The pit supplied
local brickworks, and its clay was derived from
fine-grained, wind-blown silt known as loess. The darker
patch in the cliff face contains layers of soil that
built up when the loess was not being deposited. When the
loess-bearing winds returned, the layers were covered
over.

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